Elon Musk certainly has a lot of ideas. Since making a fortune from PayPal in the original dotcom boom, he’s taken over Tesla, pushing forward production of electric cars, and founded SpaceX, the rocket company that now flies plenty of NASA payloads.
Two newer companies — the Boring Company, focused on digging holes for transit tunnels, and NeuraLink, which is developing brain-computer interfaces — also occupy his time. Then there’s the Hyperloop, the high-speed land travel design he’s encouraged others to develop. Somehow, this brash billionaire still has time to get himself into trouble on Twitter.
Musk is offering some familiar background about his start in the tech industry, from Zip2 to what would become PayPal. “I believe you shouldn’t ask other people to invest unless you’re going to put your own money in,” he says. He’s not really turning on the charm here — the delivery’s fairly flat.
He claims that if the jury finds in favor of Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, and Microsoft, “it will become precedent and give precedent to looting every charity in America.”
Sam Altman did not return, but our first witness has been called: Elon Musk.
Elon is going to take the stand; stay tuned. The jury is reentering the courtroom after listening to arguments from OpenAI and Microsoft, then taking a short break.
According to Microsoft’s lawyer Russell Cohen, making his opening argument in Musk v. Altman, saying that each round of funding (including across the events of November 2023) provided more resources, which produced better research and better models that justified further investment.
Similar to Savitt, Cohen closed by saying that Musk only raised claims about the deal after ChatGPT and OpenAI became successful, and he launched xAI as a competitor.
Following the opening argument by Altman’s lawyer, Russell Cohen began Microsoft’s argument. According to Cohen, the dispute has little to do with Microsoft (which just relaxed its arrangement with OpenAI).
His version of events is that OpenAI came to Microsoft because it needed a massive investment to pursue its research, Microsoft wasn’t there when Musk was donating to the project, and no one, Musk or anyone else, claimed there were any conditions preventing Microsoft from investing.
As Savitt wrapped up his opening argument, he leaned on saying that Musk’s lawsuit came after the statute of limitations, and that he “sat on his claims for years.” The sour grapes only kicked in once it turned out that OpenAI was valuable.
According to Altman’s lawyer, William Savitt. Continuing his opening argument, Savitt brought up an email from OpenAI scientist Ilya Sutskever around the time Musk’s quarterly donations ended.
It said, “The current structure provides you with a path where you end up with unilateral absolute control over the AGI,” which apparently upset Musk to the point that he “literally” grabbed his stuff and stormed out.
According to Savitt, once Brockman and Ilya Sutskever built an AI model capable of besting Dota 2 players in 2017 and realized the importance of compute, they held dozens of meetings that included Musk, Jared Birchall (CEO of Neuralink and Musk’s longtime wealth manager), and Shivon Zilis (you know) about how to structure OpenAI for profit.
William Savitt, who is representing Sam Altman, continued his opening argument, saying that Musk only started to care about supposedly broken promises by Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman once he became a competitor. “The only person who claims to have heard those promises is Mr. Musk himself.”
The lawyers representing Sam Altman and OpenAI are not mincing words when it comes to Musk’s claims in their opening argument, saying that we’re only here “because Mr. Musk didn’t get his way at OpenAI.”
Companies Altman invested in got contracts from OpenAI that Altman approved, Molo says. That’s how Altman is making OpenAI money without an OpenAI equity stake.
Molo’s mic just cut out. YGR: “What can we tell you, we’re funded by the federal government.” It was reset and cut out again, “Is this a Microsoft product?” Molo asks.
The point at which Musk’s lawyer says the change occurred was the third Microsoft deal on October 20th, 2022. That is when OpenAI was no longer for the good of humanity, and also when Musk hired a lawyer.
Musk’s lawyer, Molo, says that Musk is concerned about what happens when computers are smarter than people, and that there are people who think that’s not too far away. He says that’s artificial general intelligence, and we’ll be hearing about it a lot.
Steven Molo, Musk’s lawyer, is giving an opening statement in Musk v. Altman. The case isn’t about Musk, he says. It’s about Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. After yesterday’s sentiments on Musk, Molo is making a point of asking jurors to put personal sentiments aside. Musk will be the first witness,
Correction: The case is Musk v. Altman, not Altman v. Musk.
We expect opening arguments today.
YGR denied those challenges. “The reality is that people don’t like him,” she said. “Many people don’t like him. but that doesn’t mean that Americans nevertheless can’t have integrity for the judicial process.”
While the lawyers ask questions of prospective jurors, apparently there are Happenings outside the courtroom.
We’ll get another set of 20 shortly. So far, five people have disliked Musk enough to bring it up, but all but one say they can be fair. Lots of people have used AI, with varying opinions on it.
Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has introduced herself to prospective jurors; so have all the assorted lawyers. We are looking for nine people. This case should be done by May 21st, at which point it goes to the jury.
I’m in the courtroom — and jury selection will begin shortly. Sam Altman is here, but I haven’t seen Elon Musk.
The federal judge overseeing the case granted Musk’s request on Friday, which he says will “streamline the case” and keep things focused on “ensuring that OpenAI adheres to its public charitable mission.” Two claims will proceed to trial this week.
It’s all about the court of public opinion.
That’s listed among SpaceX’s “substantial capital expenditures” in the S-1 registration filed ahead of its IPO, reports Reuters.
The space / AI / social network company is working with Intel to build its “Terafab” chip plant that Musk said could rely on a new 14A chip manufacturing process.
Reporting from Bloomberg on how many Cybertrucks Elon’s other companies have been buying:
SpaceX, the Musk-led rocket and satellite maker, accounted for 1,279 — or more than 18% — of the 7,071 Cybertrucks registered in the US during the fourth quarter, according to registration data that S&P Global Mobility provided to Bloomberg News. The billionaire’s other ventures acquired another 60 vehicles during those months.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is worried about X Money, Elon Musk’s upcoming payment platform, and the risks it poses to consumers and the financial system. She’s probably right to worry, but the solution might have been in front of us the whole time:
GHollister:
Have you tried not using X Money? That is my plan, seems to be working ok.
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The billionaire space race sure heated up yesterday with Amazon’s purchase of Globalstar. In response, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched 54 new Starlink satellites in less than 24 hours via two deployments, while Jeff Bezos has only managed to launch a total of 241 Leo satellites in the last 12 months.
Elon Musk has apparently made the jump from X to infect both TikTok and Instagram with new verified accounts. According to the New York Times:
Mr. Musk needs to build widespread public interest in SpaceX so it can raise billions of dollars from investors. The public offering could turn the 54-year-old tech mogul, who is already the world’s richest man, into the first trillionaire.
[nytimes.com]
A long, and at times funny, report in The New Yorker on Altman’s will to power, people-pleasing, and alleged pattern of deceit, compiled from notes, memos, and more than 100 interviews. Altman’s reputation has given rise to grimmer rumors – hiring sex workers, the sexual pursuit of minors, even involvement in murder – that The New Yorker found no evidence for. Increasingly, the question is not whether computers are intelligent but whether OpenAI’s leadership is.
[The New Yorker]
